In the prior art of planting methods and machines, various arrangements are known for successively setting plants in a spaced-apart relationship to each other in a row in the ground. Machines are also known that will successively set plants along the line of travel of the machine as it continuously moves over the ground. One commonly used arrangement involves a person seated on the machine who manually takes one plant at a time from a group of plants and deposits each plant in a plant conveying and setting mechanism as the machine moves slowly over the ground. The maximum speed of such machines is generally limited by the maximum rate at which a person can place plants in the plant conveying mechanism. Some machines, in an effort to increase the planting rate, provide two seats for two persons to sit side-by-side and alternately deposit plants in the same plant conveying mechanism. Such arrangements still require, as a practical matter, that the tractor which draws or carries the machine move at a relatively slow pace, such as one-half to one and one-half miles per hour. To achieve greater efficiencies with such machines, many farmers will mount two or four such machines on a common frame and thereby plant two or four rows at the same time.
A number of prior art patents which do not necessarily represent practical machines, do show attempts to substantially increase the speed at which plants are set into the ground by using tapes, belts or ribbons in which a plurality of plants are carried and thereby fed into a machine. Other prior art patents show the use of trays of plants and mechanisms which are said to be capable of removing the plants from the trays and of delivering them to some plant settng means as the machine moves forwardly over the ground. While many of the planting machines of prior art patents are purported to be capable of the high-speed setting of plants in the ground, their practical use for high-speed planting operations is questionable.